William Sanjour is a retired EPA whistleblower who challenged
the Carter and Reagan administrations over attempts to roll back hazardous
waste laws. Visit his website for more information about whistleblowers.

On July 25, the Senate environment committee held a hearing on Donald Schregardus,
President Bush's nominee for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
enforcement division. The position would make him the top environmental
cop in the country.

The Senate hearing was brief and cordial, and featured only one witness:
the nominee himself. But Schregardus has been at the center of a maelstrom
of outrage from environmentalists familiar with him as head of the Ohio
EPA, from 1991 to 1998.

Due to what they view as Schregardus's poor performance, Ohio environmental
groups began petitioning the U.S. EPA in 1997 to remove Ohio's authority
to enforce federal environmental laws. Ohio activists are campaigning to
block his federal nomination, and petitioned unsuccessfully to be allowed
to testify before the Senate environment committee.

The most egregious charges against the nominee stem from a federal court
decision in which a Labor Department administrative law judge found that
Schregardus had suppressed information about school children exposed to
cancer-causing chemicals in Marion, Ohio, and that he had fabricated charges
against the government environmental specialist in charge of the investigation.

Marion, Ohio, is a cancer alley. In 1997, some citizens of Marion, whose
children had contracted cancer, discovered that at least a dozen students
at the River Valley Schools had developed a rare form of leukemia, and
other children had developed Hodgkin's disease, cancer of the esophagus
and breast cancer. The families of the cancer victims formed the Concerned
River Valley Families. When they learned that the schools had been built
on top of an old Army chemical waste dump, they contacted Ohio health and
environmental officials, held public meetings and demanded an investigation.
Nevertheless the group was vilified and harassed by people in the community
who were concerned about the reputation of the town and the schools.

One person who took their concerns seriously was Ohio EPA environmental
specialist Paul Jayko, who had been assigned to the Marion site after the
problems arose. Jayko, a reserve major with the Army's Green Berets, was
trained in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. After a preliminary
investigation, he concluded that there was a "strong potential for human
health risk." His report recommended that the Ohio EPA immediately conduct
further environmental tests. The Ohio governor at the time, Republican
George Voinovich, backed Jayko, ordering the Ohio EPA to commence an investigation
of Marion and to "leave no stone unturned."

Ohio EPA inspectors began the investigation, but it soon became clear
to Jayko that the data collection was being botched. Contrary to Governor
Voinovich's admonition, many stones were left unturned. In the meantime,
officials allowed the schools to remain open. Jayko felt a sense of urgency,
fearing that more children might be affected, and he finally wrote a memo
complaining about the data collection process.

The reaction from Administrator Schregardus, however, was to let Jayko
know, through his supervisor, that management did not appreciate him putting
his complaints on paper, making them look foolish and incompetent. In retrospect,
Jayko suspects that Schregardus was looking out for the interests of the
business community and developers in Marion.

Soon, the harassment started. Jayko's responsibilities were gradually
removed, he was cut off from information and excluded from meetings, and
he received a notice from the personnel department informing him of a possible
suspension or termination. In effect, he became a pariah.

It quickly became clear why. Before the data was even collected, Donald
Schregardus had been telling the press that there was no evidence linking
the sites to leukemia and instructing his staff to do likewise. Jayko's
supervisor obediently wrote a memo instructing his staff to seek out information
which can allow us to conclude that the existing "environmental" conditions
in the local community(s) "do not pose a threat to human health."

Despite being ostracized, Jayko continued to voice his concerns. This
irritated Ohio EPA management until they removed him as site coordinator
in June 1998, even though his authority had already dwindled to almost
nothing. On July 28, 1998, Mr. Jayko filed a complaint with the U.S. Department
of Labor. Two days later Schregardus suspended him without pay for 10 days
for having consumed two beers while on travel, and having submitted a request
for the travel reimbursement which included the two beers. Other retroactive
defamations followed.

After a trial, administrative law judge Thomas F. Phalen, Jr., found
that the Ohio EPA's charges against Jayko were entirely bogus. He blamed
Schregardus for having deliberately sabotaged the site investigation and
for trying to discredit Jayko, saying: "It is clear that OEPA held him
[Jayko] in particular disfavor for reasons that may only be attributed
to his vigorous prosecution of the Marion investigation: his challenges
to management to do a full investigation to find out the causes of the
leukemia, leaving, 'no stone unturned,' while Ohio EPA management wanted
to do something graduated and far less effective. ... With regard to the
[disciplinary actions against Jayko] I find that the reasons given by Ohio
EPA management for the site coordinator transfer of Mr. Jayko ... were
conflicting, without substance and ultimately, not credible."

The judge ordered the Ohio EPA to reinstate Jayko and to publicly post
apologies clearing his name and reputation. In the final settlement Ohio
had to pay $385,000 for damages and attorneys' fees.

Most of Jayko's concerns about data collection at Marion were eventually
addressed. The site is still under investigation and no conclusions have
been made public, but the school will be closed once a new one is completed
in 2003. It is unlikely that any conclusions will ever be made public.

In February 2000, responding to several petitions dating back to 1997
from Ohio environmental groups, the U.S. EPA finally launched an investigation
into the failure of the Ohio EPA to enforce federal environmental laws.
The petitions cite numerous examples of the Ohio EPA failing to enforce
federal air, water, and hazardous waste standards and granting special
favors to polluting industries. Although originally scheduled to be completed
by April 2000, the investigation is still going on.

The shock at learning about Schregardus' nomination was summarized by
Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director of Ohio Citizen Action, who said "There's
an Alice-in-Wonderland quality to the prospect of someone with his track
record suddenly being in charge of enforcement for the entire country."
A different shock came from Stephen Kohn, director of the National Whistleblower
Center, who expressed disbelief that a known persecutor of whistleblowers
would be put in charge of enforcement in an agency with the worst track
record in the U.S. government for persecuting whistleblowers.